[Ads-l] Outside a horse, a book is man's best friend--inside it's too dark to read

[Mark Mandel]

This "lensman" is probably a photographer, but I will ask this
nevertheless: Is there any indication of whether the title is an allusion
to E.E. "Doc" Smith's series of "Lensman" science fiction novels
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensman_series), first published 1948-1954?
In those, the word has nothing to do with photography.

Mark Mandel


On Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 12:49 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Way back in April 2010 Laurence Horn initiated a thread about a quip
> attributed to Groucho Marx: Outside of a dog, a book is man's best.friend.
> Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-April/098753.html
>
> * ......*

[ref] 1950 January 11, The Sunday Press (Binghamton Press), *The Lurking
> Lensman* by Phil Willon, Quote Page 3C, Column 1, Binghamton, New York.
> (Newspapers_com) [/ref]
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Outside of me, a book's a man best friend. Inside of me, he probably
> couldn't read it anyhow.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
>

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